


The Sounds of Silence

by Arieadil



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Deacon/Sole Survivor if you squint, For a daily prompt challenge, Short One Shot, The Institute - Freeform, The Railroad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-13 19:20:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5714125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arieadil/pseuds/Arieadil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sole Survivor, Avery Leighton AKA Agent Wanderer, reflects on her time spent in the Institute and her hopes for the future of the Commonwealth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sounds of Silence

**Author's Note:**

> For a daily prompt challenge (I've issued myself): 365 prompts in a jar. Draw one (or more) each day and just write.  
> Prompt: The Sound of Silence; Write about staying quiet when you feel like shouting.

It’s too clean there. Too white, too pristine. It was just a ruse though, a long con; the sterile white walls couldn’t fool her. She could see the rot beneath the lacquered exterior even if the others there couldn't. She hated when she had to come back to The Institute, but Desdemona had asked her to so she had to make do with her unease.

"Keep up appearances, we need that intel," she said “You're doing a great job."

Certainly not how she felt, but she'd take the small assurances when she could get them. Every member of the Railroad was a truly gifted liar. Desdemona to her agents when she needed something done, Deacon to just about everyone he ever encountered in the Commonwealth, and Wanderer to herself. She had become quite proficient in fooling herself. _One more job. Just one more mission and I'll see my son again._

She felt like she was about to crack. Crumble under the weight placed upon her shoulders. The pressure on her to stay the course and power through the discomfort was punishing. She still had trouble wrapping her mind around how she had even gotten herself into her current situation in the first place. She just wanted to find her son and go on living with whatever shred of her former life that she could grasp. Now she was the fuse in a powder keg about to explode, igniting the entirety of the commonwealth in open war. What a place to be.

And then she found Shaun. Now that was one of her biggest lies yet. She tells herself that she wasn’t disappointed when she _finally_ found her boy. That what he’s done doesn’t shake her to her core. That she wasn’t completely and utterly destroyed by what she found in the Institute. She wished she could have done better by him. But she didn’t. Couldn’t. That chance and that life she might have known was taken from her. Now she’s here, sitting around the table with a group of scientists who aren’t even the slightest bit tactful in disguising their obvious distaste and distrust of her and presence in their headquarters.

It was strangely refreshing though. In a place plagued by deception, sitting around the table with these people helped her keep her perspective. She didn’t belong here and they wanted to be sure she knew that. The meetings were probably the only parts of her time in the institute that she could actually stand. At least they were being straightforward with her. No spoonful of sugar, just hard bitter truths. It helped to remind her why she was there still in the first place.

As much as she longed to disagree with them, shout from the top of her lungs about how what they were doing there was immoral, she couldn’t. She wanted to _scream_. Scream, kick, and claw her way from this sterile hellhole, dragging her son out the door behind her. But... of course she couldn’t. She’s the Railroad’s secret weapon. The eyes on the inside. She has to sit in silence listening to the atrocities they plan and the reports of the terrible crimes against humanity they’ve already committed, for the sake of _intelligence_. Desdemona owed her big time.

The Railroad needed her here. Desdemona needed her here. Deacon needed her here, even if that meant they were apart. She wasn’t about to disappoint them. The information they could gain from having an agent in the thick of things? Inside the institute itself, at Father's side, no less? Her newfound value was staggering. So she stays. Tolerating the petty, thinly veiled jabs thrown from every direction. The threats through clenched teeth when “Father” isn’t in earshot. She stays silent and listens. Lets the barbs fuel her growing ire for these villains in the hopes that one day the Commonwealth, _her_ Commonwealth, will be free of them. When that day comes; she hopes she’s the one who gets to pull the trigger.


End file.
